Honestly... what were they thinking bringing in Waller-Bridge to ruin this? I was in two minds as to reveal spoilers in here. Upon reflection, I can't really critique it without them.
As many have already suggested, they've turned Bond into a semi-romantic melodrama, where Bond becomes an unknowing father (Mathilde - but not fully revealed until later in the film), his uninspiring partner (Swann) creates about as much sexual chemistry with Bond as my foot does with its shoe, and in the end, Bond is killed (supposedly) in a missile strike on the villain's island lair - and yet everyone is talking about the "James Bond will return" message as the end of the credits "surprise". What's new there? This sentence always appears.
On the one hand, they've sort of gone back to what Bond used to be; A megalomaniac villain with a secret island lair and lots of henchmen, that wants to take over/destroy the world. Bond also gets more gadgets from Q than we've seen in previous Craig films - so in this respect, it's taking a backward step towards a tried and tested Connery/Moore formula.
The villain's weapon? DNA programmed, cellular sized nanobots (yes, cellular-sized robots) that target very specific individuals, groups or races that was developed secretly with M's oversight, and now stolen from the British Government and re-worked to become a WMD - Huw Dennis pops up as a scientist FFS during the theft sequence - and whilst I'm sure he loved his cameo, I can't take this comedian seriously popping up in a serious action film like this - making jokes! Come on... let's keep these things on planet Earth shall we? Remotely believable or possible please? Nanobot tech - what were they thinking with this? It's as ludicrous as an invisible Aston. Nanobots/Nanites is all a bit I, Robot or Bloodshot - i.e. Science fiction.
The opening sequence is really long. The action is great. The melodrama really isn't.
WTAF was going with Billie Eilish and the Bond theme? I can't even begin to remember how it went, or a single lyric. Such a disappointment. I actually think back to Madonna's effort with great fondness now - as whether you liked it or not, at least you can remember it and hum the tune if you wanted to. Bond anthem's are supposed to be just that. Anthem's. This tepid and dull effort is the worst Bond song even commissioned. Perhaps she was too busy releasing videos of herself explicitly doing something she shouldn't to put the effort in? Awful and entirely forgettable. Bring back Chris Cornell - now that was a Bond theme from recent years... bet you can hum it too if you're reading this.
Felix Leiter is killed. At the time of the event, it felt like something that worked in the storyline and was the "shock" character twist in the film. It probably still does work, but I'm so irritated about how woke the scriptwriting has become overall (you don't see a single bad guy actually get shot in the whole film) - has it all gone a bit "A-Team" for BBFC ratings?
Lashana is entirely unconvincing for me as a 00. She says the right things, but time is spent with her worrying about Bond's 00 designation after he is reinstated. What genuine 00 with any genuine gravitas would give a monkey's about such petty things? For me, her ability to carry weight as a 00 ended right there. Physically, she could probably have carried it off - but the mindset's just not right to be a superspy.
All we need now to kill this franchise off forever is for some sort of Dr Who gender-bending character regeneration exercise to occur to explain how Bond didn't actually die when the RN missile exploded right in front of Bond at the end of the film with a bit of UniSol spun in there for good measure. If Bond is genuinely going to return in a new film as the bloke we all know called James Bond, and I really hope that he does - the only possible explanation for him not dying at the end of NTTD would be if he's blown off the island by the missile explosion, and is found floating in the sea by a passing fishing trawler - which is a little bit Bourne (perhaps through in the Bourne amnesia too?). Can you imagine if they go down some ridiculous clone/robot "consciousness transplant", a la Picard to explain away his continued existence after dying? I don't like the potential explanations for Bond *not* dying in the next film - particularly if Waller-Bridge and the rest of the wokerati remains involved in writing the scripts and screenplay.
Overall, I'm pretty disappointed, and I just don't want to write anymore about this disappointing instalment. Bond films are not family melodrama's. With Craig rather fawning over Waller-Bridge's script involvement and consequent changes to the script in the Graham Norton Bond special last week, it's definitely time for Craig to finish and move on - which is such a shame, as he's been an excellent Bond. Really excellent. He's clearly quite woke himself now, and I noticed that he was down as a producer of the film in the credits, so Craig is partly to blame for this mess. One of the most revealing things from the Norton special was when Graham asked Lea what she thought about Waller-Bridge. That silence was utterly deafening, and it now makes more far sense to me....
As a Bond fan, if you're reading this, you're still going to watch it - of course you are. I'm going to have to watch it again just to revisit my thoughts on it - but Christ. You can't kill Bond. Not even to try to be edgy or controversial. Idiots. Why did Barbara sign off this script crapola and risk the longevity of the greatest franchise in film history? Don't lose your marbles Barbara like Kathleen Kennedy did ruining other franchise's.